


snow and blue

by amandaskankovich



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 21:29:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3426239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amandaskankovich/pseuds/amandaskankovich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a brief glimpse into newly four year old Yevgeny’s life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	snow and blue

It’s five days before his fourth birthday when the sky opens up and heaps at least that in feet of snow upon them.   
He’s three feet tall but just barely.   
He’s over 30 pounds but just barely.  
His parents are all asleep and he opens the door and looks at the snow coming up to his head this big white wall in front of him.

"You’re going to let out all the heat," someone says behind him.  
So not all his parents were still sleeping.  
The boy points at the snow, “Yeah?” the voice says taking it in, “No school today for you.”  
Ian reaches over and closes the door and lifts him up.  
"You want breakfast?"  
"Yeah!"  
A few days earlier his mother brought him home from the doctor’s for his yearly check up and talked about the doctor taking in the slightly smaller than he should be child and asked if they were feeding him enough.  
If they were feeding him everyday.  
"Fucking free clinics," his father said when hearing about this, "Fucking quacks on power trips."  
But now his mother heaps more food on his plate than on hers.  
"There’s such a thing as overfeeding," Ian says.  
But still she says he has to eat as much as he can and even then maybe just a little more and this goes on until one day he pukes mashed potatoes onto the floor.  
"Jesus Christ!" his father says someone grabs paper towels and someone else lifts him up and carries him to the bathroom.  
"I’m sorry," he says to his mother after.  
"You did nothing wrong." She says in response.  
*  
His father is Mickey.  
His mother is Svetlana.  
His mother tells him stories in Russian about her mother or just stories like one about a Queen who is left alone in a castle by her husband. One day the King leaves and a witch comes. She turns the Queen into a white duck and makes herself look like the Queen. Then she goes and lives in the castle and lives with the King and the King is too dumb to tell the difference. The real queen who’s a duck now has babies. She warns the baby ducks not to go near the castle but they do anyway. The witch finds them and kills them.  
"But don’t worry they don’t stay dead. But this is just a fairy tale. In real life if your mother tells you not to go somewhere you don’t go. In the real world you die and you stay dead. Understand?"  
"Uh huh."  
The baby ducks are dead and the white duck mom is sad. She starts crying and the King goes, “What’s this sound?” and the witch goes, “Just ignore it!” But the King doesn’t. He asks for the duck to be captured. But none of his servants can catch the duck. So the king says he’ll do it himself and he goes and finds the duck and the duck flies right into his arms and turns back into the real Queen. The real Queen tells the King about some magic water and they sprinkle it on the dead duck babies. They turn into real alive kids then and they kill the fake queen witch by ripping her apart.  
He tells this story to Ian later and Ian looks at his mother and goes, “That appropriate for a three year old?”  
"He’s almost four and what do I tell him instead? The Little Mermaid? How those shiny new legs make her feet feel like they have knives in them and she turns to pond scum instead?"  
"Sea foam," Ian says.  
"Same thing," his mother says.  
"Who needs fairy tales at all?" Nika picks him up and puts him in front of the tv.  
"Watch some talking dogs or shit."  
*  
On his fourth birthday they have to cancel the party they planned because there’s still snow everywhere and none of his friends can come.  
But there’s still a cake.   
His mother touches the back of his neck and he watches her light the waxy blue 4.  
Later he’ll lick chocolate frosting off of it and off his fingers.  
He’ll watch Mickey cleaning a gun and ask if he’s old enough to touch it yet.  
Mickey will look at him and say, “Go play.”  
He won’t clean guns in front of him as often after that.  
*  
Two days after his fourth birthday Ian takes him outside.  
The white snow combined with the sun he’ll blink his eyes over and over.  
"Wanna build a snowman?"  
"Yeah," he says running straight past him in his excitement, falling into a snow bank, the white powder comes up to his shoulders.  
But he’s not in there for too long before someone’s reaching.  
Pulling him out.  
Lifting him up.

**Author's Note:**

> the fairy tale is from the wikipedia entry on The White Duck.


End file.
